The 2012 mayoral and City Council races present an opportunity to rethink leadership of our failing public schools. Quality public schools are vital to job creation, property values, livable neighborhoods and our economic future. Yet the city presently has no jurisdiction over our schools. Rather, our volunteer school board has tremendous power to decide the direction of our schools and hire and fire a superintendent with no oversight. The only way this city will progress is by improving and expanding educational opportunities and outcomes for all its children.

In this race and every race, it seems almost every candidate is the self-declared "education candidate." While such declarations are encouraging, they are often hollow. It is the problem of connecting the dots. Politicians and policy-makers excel at setting aggressive educational goals, but too often fail at making any efforts to meet them.

There has been a huge disconnect between the city's 20-minute neighborhoods and high school redesign that threatened closure of large schools with strong community involvement and dismantled vibrant urban neighborhoods. Why did city leaders rubber-stamp a rushed and badly flawed construction bond that left many students in unsafe buildings with less instruction time than required by state law? The city's economic development efforts are hampered as Portland Public Schools dismantles educational programs that foster a skilled workforce and enable us to attract and retain business. Cradle-to-career is a good concept, but it has no teeth. Providing college scholarships to a select few is a questionable allocation of resources when most students cannot get math or science classes to prepare them for college, career or life. How can PPS cut Benson's computer technology and pharmaceutical tech programs when Benson provides a successful pathway to well-paying jobs and the mayor is recruiting software and health care companies?

What can the city do? The city can actively help to achieve quantifiable results by being a partner in programs that help kids arrive at school ready to learn, taking some of that pressure and cost off the district. The city can fund and facilitate things like Head Start, SUN before-and-after school programs, Portland Parks & Recreation, gang prevention measures, affordable housing and workforce development programs, cost-effective summer learning and enrichment programs. The city can also lobby for statewide tax reforms to ensure stable and adequate funding.

The city should consider bringing PPS under the purview of city government through legislative amendment, like other cities with more successful school performance. Quality public schools are a citywide concern that impact all citizens and should not be managed in a vacuum by an autonomous board. In the interim, an education mayor could:

Call for an audit of PPS by an independent efficiency expert to streamline scarce resources into our classroom. We must recover three weeks of high school instructional time and cut administration to fund the textbooks and core curriculum that PPS failed to fund.

Participate in a rational process of consolidating schools in order to restore full and rigorous educational programs. PPS' model of pouring money into small failing schools and lowering academic standards does not serve our kids or our city. It will drive families and business out of Portland.

The time is now. Instead of empty rhetoric, our next mayor could effectively use city resources to facilitate learning and workforce development, in exchange for a seat at the table in guiding the future of our schools.

Eric Fruits is president of Economics International Corp. Suzanne Goddyn is a broker with Windermere Cronin & Caplan Realty Group. Sarah Tinkler is a member of the Economics Department at Portland State University. All three have children in Portland Public Schools.